


Safe for Cinderella

by forestofmyown



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Blasphemy, Character Death, Dissociation, F/M, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, Other, POV Second Person, Panic Attacks, Reader-Insert, Religious Conflict, Religious Guilt, Romance, Running Away, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 00:15:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20023369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forestofmyown/pseuds/forestofmyown
Summary: It's not safe to be out on one's own on the streets of New York.  Of course you carried a weapon.  Of course you would use it to defend the man you loved.  It wasn’t intentional.  You hadn’t planned it beforehand.Can they really still call it murder, just because she hadn't touched YOU?  Just because it’d taken so long to fight back after everything she’d done to HIM?Isn't it just another part of the Cinderella story?  Blood and ashes, ashes and blood …





	Safe for Cinderella

**Author's Note:**

> I was going through a pretty rough patch, and I couldn't do anything to help myself. With writing, I could, at least, help Credence. I was really, really angry, and this was a very over the top venting session. So it turned into less of a romance, and more a contemplation of emotional turmoil and human grief, I suppose. I am super fucking proud of it, though.

It’s quick. The realization that this argument is over, pointless. The knowledge that nothing will ever change, and it’s time. Your stomach plummets, your guts threaten to choke you, but it’s as though a switch has been thrown; it’s time, it’s time, so it must be done. Your body moves because the decision was made long before, and it has to be done now. It’s time.

Closing the distance and just--It’s done. Just like that. (It already was, after all; hadn’t you just thought so?)

(The movements hadn’t changed that, not really.)

Everything is tight, heavy in the air, frozen in a moment that seems to linger impossibly as you take it in. Your fingers flex, muscles mimic them, and you gasp. (It occurs to you that those fingers you’re looking at are your fingers, oddly.)

It’s instantaneous. Everything drops, relaxes, your whole body coming down from this intensity that just melts away like being doused in water. Fuck, it feels good.

Tears stream down. Why, from where, you don’t know. You feel so … relieved. Like this is it, it’s over. Done. Finished. Complete. Accomplished.

She’s staring at you, eyes wide and angry but more shocked, stunned, still trying to figure it all out, comprehend just what has happened. Her mouth is open, slack, and sound gurgles within.

“I’m sorry,” you tell her, something between a laugh and a sob following up the words. You blink the tears away rapidly, do your best to smile, and try to tighten your grip again. It’s difficult. Your fingers are slick, the wetness warm. (Are those _really_ your fingers? They must be.) “I really, really am, that it had to come to this. That you just wouldn’t _listen_.”

Your whole body shakes with the word, the handle twists, and her head snaps to the side, as though belatedly trying to stop what has happened. It makes the rivers run faster, color glisten on her pale skin. (Hadn’t even been a river there a moment ago. Things are moving so fast, despite the fact that they don’t feel like they’re moving at all.)

You hold your chin up high.

“But you will _never--_ ” It jerks, so does she. “--hurt Credence again. And for that, I am _not_ sorry.”

You bring up your free hand to cup her face (a sick resemblance of all the times you’ve held him in much the same way), wiping away tears, soothing down sobs. And you twist (it feels like the thing to do, next), just like that, and she sucks in a breath that doesn’t make it down her throat, comes back up and sprays you in the face.

It’s warm. You blink it away, brow furrowed. Your chest heaves a bit, breathing is getting a bit difficult. Burns.

For good measure, you tug towards yourself with one hand, grip on her face with the other holding her in place, dragging through skin and muscle and whatever else is in there. You think the tip catches on something. The momentum stops even though your entire shoulder still wants to move.

It doesn’t matter. This is enough, isn’t it?

You pull the knife out. It just … slides free, easy as it went in. (You aren’t actually sure it went in easy; it was so fast, you used so much force ...) Your heart pounds so loud you can’t even hear the sounds she’s making. She just … crumples. Forward, into you, your chest, grabbing, grabbing.

She’s heavy. Slick, growing more and more slick. Eyes wide, staring up at you desperate but angry but desperate again. (Disgusting gross wrong wrong why can’t you _breathe?_ ) You swallow, take one step back. Another.

She can’t hold herself. She loses her grip on you. Slides down. Hits the floor.

A few twitches, mostly in the chest, as her body fights to live and only pumps more and more blood from the gash you’ve left in her neck. It’s so large. Almost back to front. God, it’s ugly. Disgusting. The light bounces off the jagged strips of meat that are visible amid the waves. (Your chest heaves with effort; God you should feel something why can’t you feel something?)

She’s so quickly laying in a pool that it’s mesmerizing to watch. The red grows, spreads, reflects the derelict room around you. She twitches in it, spreading it like thin paint.

The smell is overpowering. You take a long drag of it, sputter a laugh. (Breathe, breathe, _breathe--_ )

At least she’s not loud. No one has come to check on you from upstairs, despite how heated your argument had been. They know better by now, surely. Better than to interrupt _her_.

The twitching slows. A small jerk here or there. A bubble pops from her lips, tiny, and the rest just dribbles out, no fight left. Her eyes are wide, on you, but you don’t think they see you. Not anymore.

Is she gone yet? (Does it matter?) Best not to wait. Something must be done with the body, before the others see.

They’ve been through enough. They don’t need to see this.

God, no, they can’t see this. It’s dirty. Too ugly. Not for them. Not Credence, who’s seen enough already in this wretched world. Not Modesty, who still has hope, can still move on. Not even Chastity, who’s clung to a lifeline of obedience behind masked fear.

Children. Children.

You wipe your knife clean on the hem of her dress, then peel the clothes off her as inspiration strikes. (Your hands are shaking; breathing is more like sobbing, but sobbing is something you do with emotion so that can’t be right, can it? Your face is making the right expressions for it, though, so maybe it knows something you don’t.) You do your best to use it to soak up some of the blood, tear off a bit to wrap around her neck so she doesn’t drip as much while you drag her to the back door. You scour the kitchen for accelerants, grab dirty towels for the rest of the puddle, and have the fire roaring in a trash bin behind the church and the floor scrubbed before the sound of footsteps on the stairs has you looking up.

Your heart hasn’t settled down yet. Nothing feels real. You’re walking in a dream.

A wet, crimson dream, but your beautiful, glorious Credence is descending the stairs like Cinderella arriving at the Royal Ball, fearful glances being shot around for his wicked mother, head dipped and shoulders hunched but for the first time, _free_. _Safe_.

He doesn’t know it yet. Your heart leaps for him.

Everything hurts and you’re gonna be sick (oh, that’s what that is) but it’s worth it, so fucking worth it because she’ll never fucking touch him again, _never_.

Your head is swimming. Credence turns his eyes to you, slowly, after sweeping the room, and his nose wrinkles.

“I came to check if she... are you alright?” He’s so quiet. Such a pretty, deep voice, hidden behind fear. “Where is she?”

You can’t take your eyes off of him.

_She’s burning,_ you want to laugh. _She’ll burn forever in_ _the_ _Hell_ _she preached_ _now,_ _if it exists. L_ _ike she deserves._

Your throat is tight. You can’t breathe again. Instead, you turn and force yourself to look away. To look at the doors that stand between you and the fire.

The blazes lick around the bundle there like hundreds of tiny, fiery hands grabbing, grabbing. Like the hands of the children who’d come to her, begging food. Like she grabbed at you. _Drag her down. Drag her to Hell. Make her suffer, please. Suffer for every mark on his skin, every time he’s ever flinched, every unkind word he’s ever heard. Fucking burn._

The chanting sounds ... gleeful, in your head. (But also angry? So, so angry.)

_The girls, too. Burn for them. Every child who has seen themselves in her hurtful words and evil pamphlets, who’s been forced to stomach her for a morsel of food on the streets, every adult who’s listened and agreed and had their hearts tainted and went on to be just as evil, as cruel--_

(The glee is gone. It’s just the anger now, but sadness feels like a small child tucked behind Anger’s heels, watching.)

_But so much for him, for_ him _, because_ _I_ _love him so damn much and he cries, he’s cried, he’s been hurt and he’ll never be quite who he could have been without her_ _he_ _’ll never know that Credence and fuck her for taking that from him, damn her for the memory of her he’ll always carry._

It’s too much. You’re on your knees, and Credence is there, and you’re crying again, you don’t know what the fuck this is, what the hell is happening, what you even _feel_ (but it is _feeling_ , at least you think, and it’s so sudden it feels like an attack from no where). It’s all too much.

But it’s over. He’ll never come to you crying again, bleeding and scared and confused and hurting inside and out. Safe, Credence is safe and fuck the damage this has done to your soul or whatever it is that people worry about when you take a life. It seems like such a small price to pay for this. For _him_.

(It was so easy. So quick. And she deserved it. Deserved death, and so much more. Hell, maybe it was too quick. But at least it’s over.)

_Dust to dust,_ you sneer at the door, tucked into Credence’s arms, the floor still wet beneath the two of you from your scrubbing, from her blood. (Where is it all coming from? One after another, they bombard you, and you hate them all—these feelings.)

_Your devil god didn’t save you, monster woman. No god saved Credence, either, unless that salvation was in sending me, and if that’s so, what took so fucking long?_

God themself better come down and apologize to Credence if that time comes, or you won’t fucking accept heaven. And if hell awaits, well then, to hell you go--you still wouldn’t change a thing. (Except maybe, if you could do it earlier) And it’s another chance to see Mary-Lou again, isn’t it? You won’t say no to another chance to fuck her up.

Seems like you just did whatever god exists a service, ridding the world of _her_. (Should have done it themself, shouldn’t they? Did them a favor. Slacker. Can’t be worth serving, then.)

“Breathe, Y/N.” Credence’s voice urges you. “Breathe.”

You suck in at his command. It’s more difficult than it should be. Doesn’t work right, stops in the middle. Reflex has you trying again, but there’s no making it work and you choke on whatever’s blocking the way.

Cough after cough tries to fix your throat, and you suppose it’s working since everything burns but your chest is moving with much more gusto than usual. You’re gripping Credence much too tightly; you’ll leave marks.

The thought slaps you, and the instantaneous release of your hands throws off your balance. An elbow slams into the floor. Credence grabs you full around the waist to pull you back into his lap. The wet floorboards are tinting your clean clothes pink.

She’d soiled herself in death. You’d vomited into the bin while trying to start the fire. (These are things you know, not things you remember.)

Your soaked clothes burn with her. So do the rags you’d cleaned with. You need to watch the fire, make sure no one tries to sneak into the yard to use it to warm themselves. The bones must be dealt with when the flames die down.

Someone will notice she’s gone, eventually. You have no money. Neither does Credence, nor the girls. Someone will try to take Modesty and Chastity. Mary-Lou has not equipped Credence for life on his own.

You’ll need to be gone before they come. Long gone. All of you, if you want to stay together. Chastity might fight you. She’d accepted her fate under Mary-Lou, learned to think it was a fair trade-off, a roof and clothes and food under a tyrant. She’d adapted to it to survive, emmulated her captor. She doesn’t know any better, won’t know what to do without Mary-Lou to tell her.

Modesty will want to go home. Her real home. Her family, her parents and all nine siblings. And they won’t be able to support her any better now than before, and someone will come take her again, and who knows where she’ll end up. If she’ll be cared for; if she’ll be loved.

You won’t leave Credence. You’d die first.

Will he want you in his life, once he knows what you’ve done?

You’ll tell him, of course. You have to. You could never lie to Credence, never keep a secret from him.

Not on purpose, at least.

(That he doesn’t already know you love him baffles you. It’s clear as day.)

(Mary-Lou had known. She’d said you’d burn in hell for it. Called you perverse. Called him worse, and damned you for loving him.)

(Chastity knows. Had glared at you, warned you off before you made his life harder than it already was, dragged him further into sin.)

(Modesty knows. She’d smiled and giggled and whispered that when the two of you were together, it was the only time she really saw Credence smile.)

(Maybe he does know. Maybe he pretends not to. Maybe it has just been too dangerous to do otherwise.)

“Y/N?” His voice is still so quiet dispite being absolutely drenched in worry. It soaks his words as he speaks, afraid for one of the few good things he’s found in this life. (Good. He thinks you’re good. Are you good? What is good? Does it matter, if there is no god?) “Where? I’ve got some bandages hid upstairs, if she’s gone ...”

Bandages? Your wipe at your eyes roughly with a dry bit of your sleeve, desperately trying to clear your vision enough to see him, look him over. “Why do you need bandages? Are you hurt? Did she do something before I got here?”

He pauses a moment, then shakes his head minutely. “No, for you, I mean. I was asking ... where, if you’re hurt, if she hit you or--”

His eyes flick over you in sections, checking for something Mary-Lou doesn’t usually leave to be seen so easily. (Except on Credence. She always hated him special.)

_(Hated_ . Not hates. There’s a perverse glee in that thought. Hell, it is. )

“She didn’t hit me, Credence.” You reach up a hand to his face, and stop. The sleeve is pink. (His lips are pinker.) “But I ... I hurt her.”

The hand falls and you watch his eyes, waiting for judgement.

Those pools of brown are surrounded by white that only grows wider. He cups his hands around yours and half rises to his feet, tugging you after him. “You should go, you have to go. She’ll be mad, you have to get away before she--”

You wobble up, but pull him right back, not letting him guide you to the door as he half turns, trying just that. “She won’t hurt me, Credence. She can’t.”

His eyes dart around, searching for her in every corner, and you wonder if he even hears you through the panic. (Will he always search for her?)

He reminds you of a rabbit. Scared, tense, vigilent, waiting to be devoured.

“She isn’t here. And she’s not coming back.”

_(I killed her I killed her I killed her I’m a murderer Credence a murderer shouldn’t touch you with my dirty hands but oh she deserved it she fucking did so is it wrong is it really wrong it can’t be bad if it was for you I’d do it again I’d do anything to save you)_

A face without expression jerks slightly, telling you, _no, she always comes back_.

He doesn’t understand the extent of your words. Doesn’t believe. (He can’t. The fear is stronger, a life of abuse leaving instincts stronger than any words.) His hands shake—just a bit—around yours. You wiggle a thumb free and wrap it around to rub soothingly at the base of his knuckles.

You have to say it. He won’t understand. He’ll never be free; without the words. It has to be said.

“I-I killed her.”

It seems wrong to touch him so gently when you say such words.

He blinks. Once. Twice. His face turns in a few successive, slow ... almost spasms. His brows twist in confusion. You swallow. (It’s difficult. You have to try twice.) Your vision swims again.

This time, it’s a whisper.

“I killed her.”

The house is so silent. The streets outside are louder than anything in the building; you’d never know two girls were upstairs. (They know to be quiet when Mary-Lou sends them away.)

There’re voices and feet shuffling and life carrying on, business as usual, and all you can think about is if you’re about to lose the most important person in your life. (What’s happening, what’s happening, the pressure is building again, the feeling isn’t a _feeling_ but you _feel_ it--)

“I made a choice,” you tell the silence as you stare at him and touch him so slightly and he fades in and out of focus. “God help me, I made a choice. And it’s done.”

_Help me._ The words linger.  _Help me_ .

_I don’t regret_ . A deed doesn’t change who you are, because the person you are still got you there, was there longer than the time it took to make one act. Nothing is, intrinsically, different.

_(I don’t regret. She deserved what she got. I’d do it again. Who can judge me?)_

Still. You did something difficult, something emotionally taxing, devestating, even. There’s so much inside, screaming, roilling, barely able to fathom, to cope. It was done, and it was done by you, and now ...

Now, you live.

(Shit shit _shit_ )

“No you didn’t.” His eyes drift down, unfocused, like he can’t understand it, can’t fathom it. Back, forth, back again, he searches inside, and you wonder what’s in there. Time flew by getting rid of her; almost like it wasn’t you, you weren’t there. Now, time thrums in your head like a shove with every heartbeat in your chest. “You couldn’t. She c-can’t.”

(Evil can’t die. Can’t be escaped. Can’t be beaten. He can’t believe.)

He blinks, blinks again, and then brings his eyes back up to yours. Seeing.

(Can’t believe he could have been saved.)

“Y-you—A-are you ok-kay?” Oh, god damn him. He looks so scared. So shocked. He’s already looked you over, you know he means _inside_ as he meets your eyes and his hands tremble as they rest timidly against your knees. One hand raises, falls back just as quickly. His eyes are so wide; so impossibly wide.

“I’ll deal with it later,” you tell him, smiling. (You are smiling, right? This is a smile? You need to smile for him, but you can’t _feel_ \--) “You need to go. You need to get the girls and just ... get out of here. Find a life; a real one.”

His brow furrows. “S-she--where--”

He looks around, like he expects to see _it_ ; as if you’d just leave _it_ there for him or the girls to come down and find. (He doesn’t know what it is to be loved. Not yet.)

“I took care of it.” Looking over at the doors, you correct yourself. “I’m taking care of it.”

He follows your line of sight. You can hear the crackling of the fire, so he must as well.

Bones don’t burn. You wonder if he knows that. “I’ll dump the rest in the sewers. But there’s no telling how long before someone notices she isn’t around anymore. A believer, or even just someone she’s pestered inquiring after the quiet. If you don’t want the girls taken, you all have to go together. You’ll have to convince them.”

(You don’t know how your voice is so ... normal. What a pleasant day. It might rain later. Got to toss the body, you know how it is. How’s your mother?)

(That thought was almost funny. You might scream.)

He’s staring at the doors still. His mind must be going, working, thinking.

He doesn’t seem bothered by his hand still on your knee, wrapped in yours. Your closeness.

(Your both practically sitting in her blood—no no it’s gone, you cleaned it up it’s fine--)

Everything just fucking hurts, your eyes burn, chest too, feet ache, you’re _tired_. So fucking tired.

He doesn’t move when your head gently rests against his collarbone. Your eyes close. His hand squeezes a little tighter. You feel the brush of his chin against the top of your head as he turns back your way.

“We s-should take Modesty back to her real home,” he whispers. “If w-we can f-find where _s-she_ kept her money, Modesty can take it.”

He swallows. You feel the bob of his throat pressed to your forehead. You nuzzle into it. (He feels _alive_.)

“Charity ... Charity will stay. She’ll want to. She’ll keep the kitchen going, for the kids. Th-the church.”

It’s what she knows. What works, in her world.

“I’ll tell her I did it,” you whisper back. “So no one blames you or her. She can tell the cops, if she wants.”

One of his hands pulls away, and everything _stops_. Stops existing, stops meaning, oh god, oh god oh god--

He just brings it around, tentatively, and makes the unofficial embrace the two of you have created into the real thing. He’s actively holding you close now, and damn it all, it rises up your throat from deep inside and just keens out, a sob like the world’s quietest scream, and you can Feel.

You feel All. (Whatever it all is, whatever All means. You feel it. It’s unpleasant, for certain. But Credence is holding you, and that is everything Good, so what does All matter, in comparison?)

“We should ... take a train, m-maybe,” he says. (The “we” echoes in your mind like a church choir) “St-stow away, like they say vagrants do. Ride. F-far.”

You hiccup, and nod against his chest. “A train s-sound nice.”

(Anything sounds nice, if it’s still “we.”)

“You don’t have t-to go with me.” (You have to say it, make it clear. He has to know he doesn’t have to do this. You did it. Just you) “You’re free, Credence.”

His fingers spread out across your back, start rubbing haltingly, like he knows the motion is supposed to soothe, but he’s never done it before, never had it done to him, doesn’t know if he’s doing it right. (An angel, your angel.)

“You didn’t have to hate her.” (You’ve had this conversation with him before. He knows why you stayed around, even if he doesn’t _know_.) “It was about me.”

When he says this, the fact that his head has shifted just a bit, that his lips are pressing into your hair as he speaks, drags a stuttering breath out of you. You feel trembly, weak.

“I made a choice. I’ll live with that. You--”

“I don’t want to be without you.”

His whisper cracks, just a little bit.

And that’s everything.


End file.
